


teen idle

by nereid



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 01:59:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4121925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nereid/pseuds/nereid





	teen idle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lynzie914](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lynzie914).



 

 

She's sure everyone would want her to have a better story than this - would like to hear her say she was in love with him truly madly deeply the first time she laid eyes on him. But she's probably known him since the first days of her life and she doesn't remember much from then. And even if she could, she's pretty sure it's less her undying epic love she'd remember, more crying and eating baby food and sleeping.

Plus, she can't be bothered with making her story presentable anyway.

So.

She drinks first or takes the little pills first or maybe she kisses a random first, she's not sure. She doesn't remember, so she's sure it doesn't matter. She's sixteen, it's not her time to remember things yet, that's for later, for when you're not doing them anymore. It's for later when you're not the girl everyone's scared of looking at because she might do something probably - she's not sure actually. She just knows that she's there and looking but no one's looking back. At least not until she's got a pill on her tongue and two on the way to her stomach or maybe not at all, because she counting's boring and she can't remember anyway.

The problem is she's not really good at standing straight these days and her mom wont really look at her and maybe even if her mom could, Thea wouldn't want her to. So Thea calls Tommy. There's not many people left to call. And Tommy, she's sure Tommy will come.

So she waits for him on the steps of a club she could barely read out the name of to tell him over the phone.

You're pretty, she says to him instead of hello and she's sixteen and she's rich and her brother and dad are missing and maybe dead, and you can get away with many things when you're able to circle all of the above as true.

My hero, she yells and he winces but doesn't say anything. He stands near to her anyway and tries to get them a cab.

Why won't you talk to me, she says and he says I'm not sure what to say. A cab pulls over and she lowers herself into it and tries not to puke until she reaches her bathroom and she hopes he won't tell her mom about this.

He doesn't call in the morning to check up on her, and she doesn't text him thank you.

It'd probably be better, for some value of better anyway - healthier, more responsible, more adult like of her - if this didn't happen again.

It happens, more or less exactly like the first time, twelve times in the next month.

Sometimes she's wearing pants instead of a dress and sometimes he gives her his jacket to wear. Sometimes he's by her side when she throws up in the bushes in the yard. He doesn't seem to mention this to anyone, and she doesn't either.

She only sees him in the dark these days, so one morning, when mom's gone to work and the house is empty, it's a surprise to see him when she opens the front door.

Mom's not here, she says and he says okay, but he comes in anyway.

She almost says Ollie's not here either, but that would be too cruel and true and highly unnecessary.

She doesn't say it. She doesn't stay much of anything. He stays anyway.

He comes over, probably when he knows her mom's not there, because he never comes when her mom's home. Sometimes he says nothing the whole time, sometimes he makes her watch some god awful cartoons with him. He makes peanut butter sandwiches and thinks that counts as lunch and never pours them any alcohol out of the Queen wine cellar. He reads out to her sometimes, articles and short stories he finds laying around their living room. He lets her drag him along as a plus one for all the Queen fund-raisers and never complains out loud about his tie bothering him or his shoes being uncomfortable and why couldn't he just miss this one party. Ollie used to do these things. And maybe Tommy did too, when Ollie was alive, and there was a male Queen to miss a party with in his life, instead of just a female Queen to go to the party with.

So? she asks one day. She's feeling restless, she can't help it.

So what, he says back.

Done fixing me yet? she asks, opts for sounding the brattiest she can be. This is probably unnecessary. He's being kind, and this is unnecessary.

The calendar on the wall behind them says it's Ollie's birthday.

Tommy clenches his jaw and stares into nothing.

He still comes over that night when she texts at 3 am.

In fact -

He even comes over the next day and reads an article about whales to her, three pages long and she listens to it and she pretends she doesn't notice that her alcohol binges are appearing less often these days.

 

 

He still never calls in the morning to check up on her, and she never texts him thank you.

 

 

But she thinks they hear each other anyway.

 

 


End file.
